a family blog for the whole fam damily

If you are celebrating Advent (or more specifically, using a Jesse Tree), today may be the reading on Isaac and the Ram. It’s found in Genesis 22:1-14. It’s a retelling of a man’s faith, his willingness to sacrifice what he holds dear in order to obey God.

This is the retelling of our family ram.

In June, Damon lost his job due to company cutbacks. He was fortunate enough to receive a severance of four months, so we weren’t immediately destitute. God provided in other ways- Damon making money doing freelance work for a few companies who needed his expertise. And while he was working these extra jobs, he was also sending out his resume, meeting with people, and trying to find another job.

We hoped he would find a job quickly. But time went on and suddenly we were at the half way point in his severance. It was summer, so in some ways it just seemed like Damon was taking extra vacation days. We were busy with CFC, travel, and working on finishing our backyard fence. But a job offer wasn’t coming. And it seemed very bleak.Continue Reading →

It took me a little while to be motivated but here is Fuller’s second grade introduction collage:Meet Fuller! He’s awesome!

We put the picture in his introduction slide to his teacher (due today- hence the motivation) and she reports she loves it.

Our Literature and Comprehension lessons have been covering main topics and supporting details. I had Fuller come up with 6 sentences to introduce himself (the main topics in the picture) and then in our power point slide, he added some supporting details. On Friday, in his virtual homeroom, he gets to introduce himself, and he’s pretty excited about it.

School officially starts for us next Monday. And Wednesday we resume our weekly co-op with other homeschool families. We had an open house today so we could visit with the parents and the kids could find their rooms for next week.

A bulk of my time getting ready for the open house was creating "family folders" for each family. It involved lots of copying/ pasting, formating, printing, and copying of all kinds of information. And when I handed each person their folder I tended to say something along the lines of, "We usually email this stuff to you, but honestly we never know if you got it or read it. At least this way I KNOW you got it."

It took a lot of work to make the folders, but it was worth it. One of the organizing techniques I was able to use was putting different categories of infomation on different colored paper. Hopefully that helps parents keep the information straight and not let it all run together and get forgotten.

Do you do that? Put different information on different colored paper? To draw attention to it? What kind of paper do you use?

I prefer Astrobrights. I had some at home, but not with me at the copier. I was regretting not getting more. The color is eye catching and comes in so many colors (23!). And it is really a good weight of paper which is important because Astrobrights are used for so much more than printing and copying.

For instance, if you follow Astrobrights on Facebook you will find they have monthly design challenges to use their paper and Make Something Astrobright! Recently flowers were the theme, and on August 13th you can start submitting your designs for the "Get playful" theme. I'm thinking Astrobrights would work very well with all kinds of paper crafts.

Another reason to like Astrobrights is their "Give a Brighter Year" sweepstakes going on now. The winner of the sweepstakes will receive $30,000 in school supplies for their elementary schoo. And that winner (it could be you!) gets to take home a $500 gift card as well. Just head over to their "Give a Brighter Year" sweepstakes facebook page, give them a "like," click "go to app," and fill in the form.

So I guess now I need to go get more Astrobrights. If not to make something fun, to at least have some on hand next time I want to make copies for the co-op.

We start school again next Monday, the 13th. As we have for the past two years, we are again participating in the Georgia Cyber Academy, Georgia’s public school at home option. It is our twist on schooling at home that works really well for our family.

The past two years we have been assigned a teacher to assist us in making our way from August to May on the learning path. Usually it is around this time we are invited to a teacher “meet and greet.” In the case of our kindergarten year the meet and greet was one of two times we actually saw Mrs. H in person. Last year, our first grade teacher had us meet her for our Dibels testing in person, which allowed us to see her a total of three times. Maybe we will see our teacher, Mrs. G, four times this year!

When we go to the meet and greet the teachers usually ask for a photo of the student to keep names and faces familiar to them. And since our interaction is usually virtual, I really liked the idea of giving not just a picture to the teacher, but a little background information on my awesome student, Fuller.

Meet Brandy. She’s the boys’ librarian. We get to see her almost every Tuesday.

When we attended the library’s party for the Summer Reading program, I sought her out so I could get a picture of her and the boys. Because, whether she knows it or not, she is along for the ride of my boys’ lives.

Remember the words to the Reading Rainbow theme? “I can go anywhere… take a look, it’s in a book!”

It’s such an adventure to be a reader, and the books that lead them on that adventure are way too many to hold in our house. So people like Brandy are going to help them find those books in the shelves (real and virtual!) of our local library. This Summer Fuller is going to read 50 books. 25 of those books are from a list I complied. So when we went to the library a few weeks ago, Fuller had his list, took it to Brandy, and she helped him find one (it’s on hold, but still).

I hope my boys will remember Brandy when they are older and thinking about to the people who helped shape them.